Cruising returned to Longmont on Saturday night as hundreds of antique, classic, vintage, restored, modified, customized and souped-up cars and pickups traveled up and down the city's Main Street.

The event, which has become one of the crowd-pleasing features of ColoRODans of Longmont's annual Rod Festival, once again gave spectators a chance to reminisce about the vehicles they, their parents, their grandparents and great-grandparents had once owned — or wanted to.

Among those observing from lawn chairs they'd set up on the west side of Main were Mead resident Larry Axelson, and his 13-year-old grandson, Jake Axelson of Loveland.

"It's something to come and do on a summer night," Larry Axelson said, although he and his grandson were also seated near a classic car themselves — a 1954 Ford Crestline Victoria that originally belonged to Jake's great-great-great grandfather and that the boy said he'll get to start driving when he gets his learner's permit in about two years' time.

Up the street, at the southwest corner of Fifth and Main, a group had brought handmade signs to give the cruising drivers that small crowd's feedback on what they thought of their vehicles.

The signs — being waved at the passing cars by Diane and Alan Bogart of Longmont, their neighbor, Bill Fulton, and Fulton's daughter Madra, who was visiting from San Francisco — signaled whether the Bogarts and Fultons considered the cars to be "Nice" or "Impressive" or, occasionally "Wow"!

Cars from across western U.S. on display

This weekend's Rod Festival, the local car club's 44th, was expected to have registered more than 325 participating vehicles who've converged on Longmont from around the nation by the time it concludes its final events in Roosevelt Park on Sunday afternoon, according to Rod Festival chairman Bill Stone.

"This is a nice event for Longmont," Stone said — one in which "the memories are pretty abundant" for onlookers and that will give people a chance "to appreciate these cars from the past for what they are and for the work that's gone into them."

Ron Wierema, who said he's been active in ColoRODans for more than a dozen years and is showing his rebuilt 1957 Chevy Sedan, agreed that the Rod Festival's events, including the cruising of Main, "is definitely a draw for the town" and "kind of a nostalgia thing."

Said Steve Powers — who's displaying a 1970 Chevrolet El Camino that he bought when it was new — "Cars are a lot of fun," and during the Rod Festival, "you get to meet a lot of nice people."

Classic cars and hot rods from such states as Texas, California, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota were among those expected to be on display this weekend, Stone said.

Saturday's events, in addition to the Main Street cruising that was expected to last until 10 p.m., included an afternoon open house at ColoRODans' club house at 209 Kimbark St. and a nighttime display of 1960s and 1970s era dragsters outside the Longmont Museum and Cultural Center at 400 Quail Road.

Actual drag racing wasn't on the schedule, but ColoRODans president Ted McArthur said people would get to see the parked dragsters get fired up.

ColoRODans gets to conduct its Longmont Main Street cruising events with city permission, reviving the tradition of a popular weekend night activity in many American communities.

In 2006, the Longmont City Council adopted an ordinance that generally prohibits the practice, after police said they'd been encountering growing problems of assaults, vandalism, littering, car crashes, loud stereos and mufflers and significant traffic congestion.

The city's ordinance gives police the authority to ticket drivers who pass by certain areas multiple times if those drivers don't have a legitimate agenda for doing so. But Longmont suspends the cruising ban for the hundreds of vehicles that participate in the official cruise nights that ColoRODans now sponsors twice a year.

'It was the thing to do'

Sixty-one-year-old Tom Tidwell, a Firestone resident who grew up in Longmont, was one of those showing up to watch Cruise Night and recalled cruising Main himself, in a 1953 Ford, when he got his driver's license.

"It was the thing to do," Tidwell said of the activity that often also went by the name "dragging Main."

His wife, Nancy, said she grew up in Louisville but that she and her friends came to Longmont to cruise Main.

On Friday night, people got a preview of a few of the cars they'd be seeing heading north and south on Main on Saturday night.

ColoRODans took over a city parking lot on the west side of the 400 block of Kimbark Street — also with the city's permission — in order to show off some of those vehicles to people attending a nearby Friday night downtown street concert at Fourth and Kimbark.

Club president McArthur, who was there with a 1957 Chevrolet pickup he bought in 1995 and has worked on restoring, upgrading and modifying in the years since, said Longmont may be in for some competition for hosting the car club's future annual Rod Festivals.

Frederick, for example, "has been asking us to go over there and put a show on," McArthur said.

ColoRODans, a nonprofit corporation, was established in 1968. On its web site — coloRODans.org — it says it's "a fun, family-oriented car club" that's been "dedicated to "Fun with Cars" since our inception."

Lynn Molitor, left, and Pam Cheney, wave at the classic cars cruising on Main Street. The ColoRODans Rod Festival began with an open house at the Longmont offices at 209 Kimbark, and a cruiser ride on Main Street on Saturday. (Cliff Grassmick / Daily Camera)

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